BEAUTIFUL LOSERS

Stephen Lewis's quiet despair(Bob Hepburn, Toronto Star, May 14th, 2005)

Barely three weeks ago, Time Magazine named Stephen Lewis as one of the world's 100 most influential people. He was placed in the "Heroes and Icons" category by Time's editors.

It was a tremendous honour for the Toronto resident, who was cited for his work over the last four years as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa.

Since 2001, Lewis has travelled the world trying to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in his beloved Africa, which he first visited 45 years ago, and to help in large and small ways in getting drugs, diagnostic equipment and medical supplies and staff to stricken areas.

And yet, despite being ranked among the top-100 influentials, Lewis is himself starting to question whether he is having any influence on easing what he calls "the human carnage" of AIDS.

Is he having a real impact? Or does the long-time diplomat just feel frustration and despair these days?

"I've been wrestling with that a lot," Lewis says, his voice just above a whisper. "The implications worry me because they strike close to the heart."

It is early Monday morning as he starts what will be another week of meetings and conferences to talk about HIV/AIDS. And while it may be too early in the day for deep reflections on whether he has made a difference, Lewis struggles to answer.

His is an almost impossible job, trying to bring hope to a continent where tens of millions have died of AIDS in the last two decades, where whole villages are noticeable for their shortage of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s, where leaders are overwhelmed.

To many outside observers, the United Nations is clearly failing to deal effectively with the crisis. There is seemingly within the U.N. bureaucracy an inertia, a treading of water. For example, there are 14 million orphans already in Africa, and little has been done to respond. And barely 10 per cent of women on the continent have access to programs to prevent transmission of the disease to their children.

It's heartbreaking that big agencies, such as UNICEF, have failed to focus sufficiently on the problem. [...]

Does he ever think of quitting, of taking on the U.N. and donor countries for their relative inactivity on funding? Or does he want to stay in the job and try to change the system from the inside?

Lewis pauses for a long time.

"Those questions are agitating me all the time," he says finally. "I'm often tempted to step back and really go after the U.N., which I think holds the key to progress" because it has more people on the ground, more resources and more influence on governments than any other organization.

"On the other hand, you just don't want to give up."

Lewis pauses again.

"I've come to the point where it as though saving one human life is what it's all about," he says slowly. "In the beginning, there were these huge numbers and you wanted to drive everything forward. Now I think, `Can we somehow save those five lives in Zanzibar? Can we somehow keep those 10 people alive in Malawi?'"

Lewis would like to remain in his post until August 2006, when Toronto will host the 16th International AIDS Conference. "It seems a plausible finale," he admits. By then, Lewis will have been in the job for five years.

Imagine if you will the president of Ford admitting he despairs of his company matching Toyota and that he now spends his well-compensated days trying “to sell just one Taurus”. Imagine General Patton abandoning any hope of beating the Nazis and dedicating his waking hours to wandering the globe on full pay “raising awareness” of the hopeless cause. Imagine the Pope declaring that Catholicism is doomed and he would now lock himself in the Sistine Chapel to pray full time. Imagine the President averring that terrorism was unstoppable and that he would spend the rest of his term trying to ensure adequate medical supplies were available for the victims.

Stephen Lewis is a millionaire doctrinaire socialist who once led the NDP in Ontario and has long been a darling of the chattering classes in Canada. Four years ago, with grandiose boasts about conquering AIDS, he accepted this high-profile position at the UN, which has brought him much glory and deference. Now, with the plague out of control and deaths multiplying exponentially, he invites us to share his existential despair and to muse on the perfidy of the usual culprits —the U.S., the West generally, even the U.N. itself (whatever he imagines that to be). Just about anyone but Stephen Lewis.

There are two issues here. The first is the absolute refusal of the U.N. and its richly-tenured senior officials to accept any personal responsibility for the failures of their efforts. Indeed, whether AIDS, poverty, genocide or nuclear proliferation, it seems de rigeur for these tranzi poobahs to be showered with praise and honours for leaving the world in worse shape than when they found it, provided they exude angst and emotional turmoil and call for another round of Western self-flagellation. With respect to AIDS, Lewis is in the center of the elite global establishment that is watching millions die while telling themselves a deadly sexually transmitted disease can be checked in the midst of unrestrained sexuality, and which spends as much time celebrating sexual license as trying to prevent the disease. The horrific disaster such stupidity has wrought is now evident. The tranzis know it at some level and are now circling the wagons defiantly, as witnessed by both pathetically self-indulgent confessionals like Lewis’ and increasingly vicious attacks on those who see through the madness.